ADDAURA - the sun shines to-day also ( ...on the oaks of that bird hill )

bandcamp
The second compilation released by Berlin-based Vendetta Records about a week ago (the first one was released in the beginning of this year). Might be of interest for the RABM community because it features a lot of bands previously featured on my blog (Ast, Antlers, Negative Standards, Ancst, Addaura...)

Sorgsenhet were formed in 2010 in Giessen, Germany. Their first demo release "Drachennebel" (2013) was apolitical, but two years later they decided to do more political left-friendly and antifascist music. In particular, the intro of this EP is an organ cover of a Yugoslavian partisan song, and the last track, "Ballad of a Soldier", is a cover version of a popular Soviet song of the same name. Additionally, you can hear an excerpt from "Warschawjanka" in the end of the second track, "Durch die Tiefen der Unendlichkeit". The cover art for "Marsch der Zeit" is a painting by Ivan Aivazovsky called "Rainbow".

The second release by a Dutch one-man project whose debut one was reviewed by me this summer. This new EP is still rooted in dark ambient and noise/drone, but it's definitely more BM-oriented than the debut album. Quite impressive stuff, especially if you listen to it alone in the dark.

Monday, November 2, 2015

bandcampBlow Out begins their first track with fair recording quality in a fast-paced hardcore punk fashion. Their sound is akin to Agnostic Front with a more fun, less Oi! sound, but definitely shows it's hardcore punk side. Their lyrics are rather catchy and distinguishable despite playing fast hardcore punk and screaming the lyrics. Their second track, Infected begins with intense cesauras, yet shows the quality of the recording as the singer's exhausted voice falters. Unfortunately, the second track is unable to give the same quality as the first track but it is enjoyable nonetheless. Their third track, I.D.G.F. only shows the singer's exhaustion more clearly in an obviously rushed recording. Their fourth track, Kacknesie is a slower song that provides a very black metal sound that is a relief both to the singer's vocals and to my ears. The end of Kacknesie reminded me of the intensity of hardcore punk, though I wish the whole song would've showed that initiative. The last song, Nagelhagel shows more black metal initiative. Overall, the song had some great positive initiative, but the recording was rushed with a fair quality of recording. I give it two and a half stars, ** */**.

bandcampVoice Eater from Arizona starts their
first song, Luz Negra with according to me, excessively annoying ambience and follows that up with very poor recording that makes their music a headache to listen to. The same can be said of their second track, though their third track, Defeater was a lot more enjoyable despite the poor quality with it's more distinguishable screaming and enjoyable power chords. Their fourth track, Vida Mierda was of less quality than Defeater but slightly enjoyable. I really think their fifth track, Orphan Breed would've been a huge artistic success if it had been recorded with better equipment and/or under better circumstances. The same can be somewhat said of their sixth track, Weakling. Their seventh track, Duele shows amazing clarity initially despite minimal feedback on the song's recording. Their last and longest track Catharsis sounds like another potential minor success of a song from the album that was hampered by poor quality recording. It's finale sounds brilliant and somehow shines through the poor recording. A complete summary of the album would be that it was too poorly recorded to give a fair and accurate review, but I'll give it one and a half stars for effort. * */**.

bandcampUninhabitable from Asheville, North Carolina begins their first song with dark ambience and slowly strummed power chords that can draw you in to their dark, twisted world. The vocals provide an intense screaming reminiscent of what I would think is comparative to (non-anarchist) Motorhead's vocals. The song's caesuras or brief, silent pauses are also reminiscent of the band Korn (non-anarchist). Banish the Throne is sixteen minutes of brutal anarchist metal that is mostly beautiful. At short-lived intervals throughout the last half of the song the vocals become momentarily less than above par, but overall a great song with a total length of sixteen minutes and one second. Their second song, War Crimes begins with a short silence followed by power chords that seem to neither decelerate or accelerate very much. The same vocals from the last song continue, albeit more high-pitched. After about three and a half minutes the second song's beat and vocals slow down considerably.

Their third song, Se Soulever begins with high noted power chords that convey an expectation of acceleration and the song holds true to that fact with accelerated power chords, drumming and vocals. Their fourth song, Duke of Progress initially begins with power chords and drumming that alternates between acceleration and deceleration that is joined by the screaming vocals later on. Overall, I would rate the album four stars ****.

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About the blog

First of all: there's probably a lot of broken English on this blog. Hope it isn't that bad, at least I'm trying to do my best. Feel free to point me to any of my mistakes, if there are any. -B.K.

If you're playing in a band and want to see your music featured on our blog - just send a download link of your demo to us:

- oiseau [@] riseup [.] net - for basically anything RABM-related, but she is generally interested in atmospheric, depressive, and post-BM stuff, as well as the projects from Latin America (and Mexico in particular). You can also contact her via facebook.

- band name, release name/year, country of origin, album cover image (or at least band photo or logo);

- track listing (properly numbered);

- preferably a full release (not samples or streaming) in mp3/m4a/ogg (128kbps or higher bitrate). You may use any free filesharing site (preferably Mediafire) to host your files; or you can use Bandcamp (but then make sure your release is available for free download). *** NO LARGE ATTACHMENTS PLEASE!!! ***;

- any other info about you and your release (links to any sites related to your band, release notes, etc.);

- reason why you want your music to be featured on our blog (note that it's not just another metal blog, and even if your band is apolitical, it still should be somehow in the spirit of RABM movement).

Most of the uploads here are band sanctioned. Anyway, if you for some reason don't want to see your music here, contact us via email (rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com), and we'll consider taking it down.

If you wish to become a contributor for this blog, send a message to rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com. The obvious requirements are: being supportive of the RABM movement, good proficiency in English, and willingness to review lots of albums on a regular basis.

FAQ

Q.: Which kinds of music are featured on this blog?

A.: - (primarily) RABM or Red & Anarchist Black Metal: all kinds of black metal-related music charged with radical leftist (anarchist, libertarian socialist, eco-anarchist, etc.) political views. Some of the bands featured here may be not openly political, but all of them are RABM-friendly;

- blackened crust/hardcore/punk (only if it's openly RABM-friendly, or if it's just very good music; we have no intention to collect here all the blackened punk in existence);

A.: Most bands nowadays have a bandcamp page, where you can but their stuff online (usually for an arbitrary price). It's the most convinient way to support the band. If your favourite band don't have a bandcamp or bigcartel page, try to find out in which distro you can find their albums/merch. Of course, go to concerts if you have such opportunity.

Q.: How can I offer my financial support to this blog, or the RABM movement in general?

A.: Unfortunately right we don't have an opportunity to accept donations, but we hope we'll be able to set it up soon.

Q.: What is the connection between black metal and hardcore/punk/crust?

A.: It's a well-established fact that the connection between black metal and punk scenes existed since the early days of BM (think Venom, early Bathory, early Mayhem and early Sodom on one side, and Amebix, Discharge and Axegrinder on another). Recently this mix of BM and hardcore punk got a new life in the form of blackened crust (thanks to Black Kronstadt / Iskra in first place). And don't forget about Cascadian black metal bands with their radical environmentalist ideology, often to the extent of radical eco-anarchism or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideas.

Q.: What's your main ideology?

A.: This blog is generally written from a position of anarchism without adjectives; however, the RABM scene is very diverse ideologically. Let us end on this, as this blog isn't quite a right place for purely political debates; if you want to learn or argue about anarchism/other ideologies, there's a lot of specialized FAQs/blogs/forums for you.

Q.: Isn't black metal supposed to be apolitical?

A.: Supposed by whom? I personally don't think so, but if you think that political awareness should have no place in "true" black metal, you can feel free to call the bands featured on here "blackened punk" or whatever you want. It should be noted, though, that a lot of these bands doesn't openly talk about politics in their lyrics, exactly because they think it wouldn't be suitable for black metal. - B.K.

Q.: Isn't RABM just an "answer" to NSBM?

A.: While RABM is definitely against NSBM and any other kind of far-right crap in metal scene, it's most emphatically a self-sufficient movement and not any kind of "answer to NSBM". Similarly, while RABM is 100% pro liberation from any kinds of religious tyranny, it isn't a movement against any particular religion (Christianity, Islam, or any other).

Q.: What's your opinion on Satanism?

A.: The so-called "Hollywood Satanism", which is often found in black metal, is, in our opinion, nothing more than inverted Christianity, so we aren't big on it. Many of us are simply atheists, pagans of all kinds, gnostics, etc. We also don't share the notion that only genuine theistic Satanists / Devil-worshippers can play "real" black metal (this would exclude such bands as Venom, Bathory, Immortal, Summoning, and many many others). Additionally, the very term "Satanism" is quite vague, and can't be narrowed down to LaVeyan Satanism (which is heavily disliked by many black metallers), or whatever else. LaVey had some good points, but in general his philosophy can be described just as "Ayn Rand with some occult tinge".

Q.: What about misanthropy and nihilism?

A.: To put it in short: we don't hate everyone and everything (and we don't think there's anyone﻿ who truly does). We just hate these traits of humanity which make true anarchist society most likely infeasible in the foreseeable future.

Q.: Collectivism or individualism?

A.: There actually is no "hard" contradiction between these two terms. Individualism is simply an outlook emphasizes the moral worth of the individual and its right not to be oppressed by the state or some social group. It doesn't contradict at all with standing up for your rights along with a group of like-minded individuals. It also worth noting that the early black metal scene didn't promote individualism that much (see "black metal circles").

Q.: Who coined the term "RABM"?

A.: Hard to say, but there's an apparent similarity to RASH ("Red & Anarchist Skinheads"). Here's the very first mention of "RABM" we could find (August 2005). The term was popularized by our last.fm group (and later - by this blog) since 2009.

Q.: Do you know the ideology of the band X? It isn't obvious if they're NSBM or not...

A.: Sorry, we don't know, do your own research. It's often hard to say anything certain about a band's views, if the members themselves aren't open about it. We also don't advice using various "lists of nazi bands" etc. as a reference, as most of them are full of bullshit. Similarly, forum posts or blog comments (especially anonymous ones) generally aren't a reliable source for anything. In one particular case, we had an anonymous comment claiming that the members of Timebomb are now playing in a fascist band called SPQR. Later it turned out that it were members of a completely other Italian band with a similar name (Timebombs). Hopefully that'd be a good example of how important fact-checking is.

Q.: I've seen some of the albums posted here in the same distro with some albums by right-leaning bands...

A.: Unfortunately it's often the case with distros and labels that distribute stuff regardless of its political affiliation. Even Austin Lunn of Panopticon complained about Pagan Flames (the label which released his "Collapse" and "Social Disservices" LPs) having NSBM in their distro, so things like these are just unavoidable.

Q.: Some bands on this blog have Burzum on their list on influences. Isn't Varg Vikernes a nazi?